The Return
by katydidit
Summary: It's been three years since the Fall, and Sherlock's finally finished. He's got blood on his hands, so much blood, but his friends are safe, and that's all that counts, isn't it? Sequel to Silvestris, but can stand alone.
1. Chapter 1

Baker Street was empty. He could tell that with little more than a glance at the darkened windows: he hadn't actually needed to break in. He did it anyway, of course, taking the stairs two, three at a time until he reached that familiar old door. His fist poised in the air, ready to knock, but he knew there would be no answer. Instead, he picked the lock and allowed the door to swing open.

The rooms were dark, haunted by emptiness and a few carefully-stacked cardboard boxes here and there. He didn't need to open any of them to know what they contained, but he did anyway. They were his things—coats, scarves, old files, books—folded and packed neatly away into these boxes, and then left to sit in the dust. Sherlock frowned in the late-afternoon light. John could have thrown it all away. He should have thrown it all away. Why would he bother keeping any of these things?

Except he didn't. None of John's things were in the flat. They'd all been moved. That made a bit of sense, then. John couldn't bring himself to take any of Sherlock's things with him to his new place, but, sentimental man that he was, he also couldn't throw any of them away. So he'd left them for the new tenants, to let them sort through and salvage or toss at their own discretion. Reasonable plan, except it was clear that there had been no new tenants in quite a long time.

Sherlock bounded down the stairs now, to Mrs. Hudson's flat. He wasn't sure he was ready to see her, but something told him that he wouldn't have to worry about that. He couldn't hear her telly going, didn't hear any soft noises that told him she was fiddling about behind the door. He made quick work of that lock as well and stepped into the room.

It wasn't empty, or at least it wouldn't appear empty to a casual observer. Then again, Sherlock had never been a casual observer. Her furniture was still there, her dishes and appliances and the pointless little knick-knacks that she used to decorate, but the important things—the book her brother gave her when she was a teenager just before he went off and got killed in a war, her favorite blouses and best pairs of shoes, the hand-knitted afghan that covered the back of her sofa—those were gone. She'd gone too, likely moved in with her sister or (Sherlock made a face at the thought) a home. He ran his bony fingers along the thick layer of dust that has built up on one of her end tables and left as silently as he had entered.

A cup of coffee at Speedy's revealed the secret of the empty building. Sherlock flagged down the owner, old Chatterjee, as he sipped, and made an ever-so-casual inquiry as to the state of the flat next door. His disguise would hold up, he knew—the beard camouflaged the angles of his jaw and the hat he wore against the rain hid the rest of his face quite nicely. Few people had ever seen him at the shop before, anyway: he preferred the Chinese place down the street. The old man, lonely since his divorce, was open for conversation, and revealed that after that fake detective nutter had gone and offed himself (Sherlock's hand didn't even twitch as he wrapped it around the cup), the doctor had been the first to move out, and then the landlady. She still owned the building, he told him, but he shouldn't bother trying to rent any of the rooms, she wouldn't hear of it.

Sherlock thanked the man (he'd begun to learn that following the social expectations of pointless small talk and meaningless niceties made it easier to blend into the crowds: you stood out more if you were curt and rude, after all) and left, thinking about the information he'd just gathered. Mrs. Hudson couldn't easily afford to keep making payments on the building and on renting another flat, which backed up his deduction that she was with her sister. He indulged in a brief moment of sentimentality, imagining her sitting in her chair in front of the telly with a cup of tea, the only remaining inhabitant of the building. She was strong and resilient, Sherlock knew, but she would also have been haunted by their non-presence. He wondered if she'd ever heard phantom footsteps on the stairs, but then pushed the thought away. He would find her later and determine whether he should reveal himself to her. Moriarty's web had finally been dismantled—he'd choked the breath out of the confirmed final assassin himself only hours before—but he was in London for John. He'd just have to find him first.

The task proved to be a difficult one. John was no longer employed at the surgery, and he'd left no forwarding address when he left Baker Street. There were simply no records of any new rental contracts anywhere. Girlfriends were out of the question: John hadn't had any luck holding down any relationships long enough to propose cohabitating, and, unless Sherlock's death had effected a rather serious change in his personality, that tendency would undoubtedly remain. Sherlock found himself consumed with the search—deadly, highly-trained assassins hadn't stood a chance against his sources and watchful eye, so how could John Hamish Watson, wounded army doctor, evade him? He put word out along the Homeless Network, but didn't receive any news for weeks.

Finally, an unwashed little urchin skipped past him on the street one day, and thrust a scrap of paper into his pocket under the guise of relieving him of his wallet. He allowed her fist to close around the scrap of bills he kept there for that exact purpose and continued as though he had been unaware of the pickpocket. After several blocks, he turned into an alley and pressed his back against the crumbling brick of a building, then fished the scrap back out of his pocket. It was just an address, rather far outside of London. Strange: John loved the city, had been willing to flatshare with a complete stranger in order to stick around. Why had he gone out so far?

Nevertheless, Sherlock made his way out there immediately. For once in his life, he had no plan, not even an inkling of an idea. The only thing he knew for certain was that he'd have to observe for a while, make sure that his return would not disrupt John's life more than he already had. Long ago he'd promised himself that if, upon his return, John had married some nice-if-not-wholly-insipid young woman and had a brood of rosy-cheeked blonde children, Sherlock would remain dead. He would leave London and find somewhere else to live, some other name. It was this promise that got him through the nights when John's final wails at the foot of St. Bart's haunted him. He would not hurt his friend again.

John's new building was...nice, if one went for such a thing. Because it was so far out of the city, there was enough space around it for a bit of a yard. A low wrought-iron gate circled the patch of grass, the "charming" little garden-figures and the scraggly tree that seemed more dead than alive. Sherlock found himself standing in front of the building for too long, pale hands contrasting sharply against the dark metal of the gate. This was John's new home. There were at least two floors, possibly a third like in Baker Street, though he couldn't see any basement windows peeking up from the plants around the base. Like many buildings in the area, it was in that place between well-maintained and a state of disrepair: the landlady (a man would not bother with garden gnomes, he decided) was probably an older woman who didn't care much about the building but hired maintenance crews when it was absolutely necessary.

A threatening bark disrupted Sherlock's observations, and he jumped a bit, remembering the German Shepherd on one assassin's estate. The puncture wounds of the beast's teeth had healed over by now, but the scar was still a pinkish color against the white of his thigh. He turned to see a young woman following a large mutt directly toward the gate. She was preoccupied with some sort of electronic reader device and didn't notice the tall figure staring at her home. Sherlock found himself hoping desperately that John was not involved with this woman. She would get him killed for certain, ignoring strange and vaguely-threatening characters standing outside of their home. He watched the lights in the bottom flat come on and faded back a bit, concealing himself behind some bushes not far from the flat. He should get home, he knew, but the desire to find out which flat was John's was much stronger than his desire to get out of the darkness.

Presently, a smaller figure appeared on the walk. He was familiar, down to that old aluminum cane he leaned on. It would make sense, Sherlock mused, for that limp to return: he had noticed that John's leg would sometimes ache even before his death: mostly when the other man was stressed or upset. John paused for breath at the gate, and Sherlock felt his eyes raking over the bushes. _Well done, John_, he wanted to say. It was clear that he had begun to learn how to Observe. Not well enough, apparently, because after another moment or two, he was pushing his way through the gate and up the stairs to the building.

Sherlock allowed himself to stay only long enough to watch the lights in the upstairs flat to turn on. The rush of glee that he felt was, he decided, wholly inappropriate. That meant only that John was not involved with the woman with the dog. But then again, it was a small building, hardly a place to start a family. John was very likely unmarried, which meant that he'd been alone this whole time. Sherlock stalked home, after trying unsuccessfully several times to summon a taxi.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock's new occupation was mostly coincidence. He hated driving, and would have much rather preferred to take up employment in some laboratory or something, but the intellectual community was much too familiar with his face and voice, so it simply wasn't an option for the moment. He still wasn't sure about slipping back into his old life, even after the research he'd been doing.

John had been busy before leaving Baker Street, apparently. He had dug through old records, uncovered new sources, and just generally thrown himself into clearing Sherlock's name. Part of Sherlock was touched, but mostly he recognized the gesture for what it was—desperation. John had needed something to fill the long hours in the weeks following the Fall, and had apparently believed that task to be the most convenient. Some of the public seemed to remain unconvinced, but several hard-hitting articles had been printed in the papers, so his work hadn't been for naught. Still, Sherlock was presumed dead and, until he could determine whether his return would do more good than harm, he would remain that way.

Thus, taxis. He'd gotten his license as expected when he was younger, but hadn't had much occasion for practice ever since. It was much more convenient, in a big city, to hail a taxi or walk, rather than to pay to park a car somewhere and worry about whether it would be there in the morning. Sherlock's mind was also not set up for waiting patiently through traffic. His first few weeks on the job were extremely difficult, and many of his fares had wound up throwing bills at him while attempting to escape the cab, clearly deciding that it was safer to walk than to stay in his backseat for much longer.

Eventually, as he acclimated himself to the job (and received several warnings from the higher-ups in the company, much to his amusement), Sherlock became a better driver, if not a patient one. When he had no dispatched fares, he found himself lingering by the small hospital that had become John's new place of employment. It was rather far from his new flat, and Sherlock knew that it wouldn't have paid nearly what the old place did, but John almost always had a reason for his actions, and, Sherlock realized with a short pang, this reason was likely due to his death.

One drizzly gray evening (of which there were so many in London, of course, that they were rarely distinguishable from one another), Sherlock pulled into the loop in front of the hospital just as John was pushing through the doors. Sherlock caught the short grin of relief that flitted across John's face, and it was the only thing that prevented him from pulling away before the shorter man could make his way to the cab. He was on his phone, but absently gave Sherlock the address that he already knew so well, and he began to take him home.

Sherlock couldn't quite make out who John was talking to (he'd been irritated to notice a significant decline in his hearing ever since one of Moriarty's women had jabbed her sharp fingernail into his left ear in her pointless fight to survive), but he could tell that it was a woman. John softened his voice when he talked to members of the "gentler" sex (the corners of his mouth quirked as Sherlock remembered that that woman who had put up the strongest fight of all of the assassins). He sounded somewhat on guard, concerned, and Sherlock remembered that tone of voice well. It was the same tone he'd used whenever Sherlock texted him to ask him to pick up cleaning supplies or to avoid the flat on a certain evening. John never replied to those texts, opting instead to call to demand details by voice. When he pulled up in front of John's building, the other man hesitated for a moment before exiting the cab. Sherlock did not meet his eyes in the rear-view mirror, and soon he disappeared into the building.

He was covered in cat hair, Sherlock noticed, and a few long brownish strands of decidedly human hair. The evidence was still inconclusive, but this was not looking good.

The months went by, and Sherlock began to convince himself that it was a bad idea to reappear. John was settled in, he began to realize, and that cat proved that he was, at the very least, not completely alone. He continued to hang around John's home and workplace, not quite so much as to begin to look suspicious of course, but...just in case. Most days John walked past the cab on his way home, and Sherlock would watch him limp away. Trying to save money, he decided, especially as the days grew colder and darker. About once a week, a young woman with long brown hair would enter the building around dinnertime, though of course Sherlock couldn't be sure that she wasn't visiting the lady with the dog. Not until one Friday night, that is. He watched from the safety of his cab in the shadows as John exited the building with that very same brunette, walking side by side but not actually touching her. They passed right by him, and the woman's face actually caused Sherlock's jaw to drop before he could stop himself.

Molly.

He'd been inundated by memories at the sight of her pointed, childish face—the determined set of her jaw as she worked on him back in her morgue, the silence as she stitched him up and assessed his injuries and, ultimately, sent him on his way. She'd been dry-eyed, almost a different person from the wistful and pathetic little girl who trailed him around St. Bart's. And now she was going out with John on a Friday night. This explained the brown hairs that sometimes appeared on his jacket, he supposed. And it made some sense for the two of them to seek each other out. Still, he narrowed his eyes and sat back in his seat. Molly had not told John his secret, he knew that much. Sherlock imagined that, if John knew he was alive, he would tear the world apart to find him.

Unless he wouldn't. Had Molly parroted to John what Sherlock had explained to her? Perhaps John knew, but he was angry that Sherlock hadn't explained it to him himself. Maybe he didn't want to see him again. Sherlock drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and watched as Molly threaded her arm through John's. Or perhaps they were simply enjoying each other's company.

Sherlock had only one fare that night (which was one more than he could have expected in that area), and the woman had quickly fled the cab, screaming something about the speed limit and the fact that Sherlock was trying to kill her. Hardly.

Sherlock rarely overslept. In fact, he rarely slept, period. That aspect of his personality had not changed while he was on his mission. Not only was sleeping boring, but it was also dangerous. He had no way of knowing, when he was unconscious and sunk deeply into the images that his subconscious concocted to deal with the horrors he'd been facing, if someone had slipped through the door to his hovel and moved to stand at the side of his bed with a pistol in their hand. When he did finally sleep, it was always shallow and restless, and he almost always felt worse in the morning than he did the night before. It was pointless.

This morning, on the other hand, he woke up feeling almost _good_—that is, until he looked at his mobile and discovered that the dispatcher had called him five times already. He didn't usually care about being on time or any of that rubbish, but he did realize that, if he lost this job, it could be difficult to find another. Employers tended to prefer hiring people with real backgrounds, not shadowy and mysterious figures, no matter how willing those figures were to accept cash under the table. Sherlock drove past John's flat on his way to work, and had no choice but to stop as he realized that the man was standing outside. He was on his mobile again, but his elevated respiratory rate and the sweat on his brow told Sherlock that something was amiss. He hung up the phone before entering the cab, so he couldn't quite guess what the problem was. For the first time, he was tempted to say something to him—_don't worry, John, I can help you fix whatever is wrong, because hello, I'm Sherlock, back from the dead_—but upon a second thought, realized that the idea made him cringe.

He ignored most of his dispatches that day in favor of staying near the hospital. He wanted to know what had made John so upset that morning, and though the day was bright and sunny, he got the feeling that John would want to ride home today instead of walking. He wasn't wrong—but then, he so rarely was—and he couldn't help but smirk as John hobbled back to the cab that evening.

So much for those potential skills at observation, Sherlock found himself thinking. After that first day, with John's scrutinizing stare in the mirror, he hadn't so much as glanced at the cabbie ever again. He also failed to notice that Sherlock had rigged the meter to click over much more slowly than normal, severely undercharging the older man for each ride. For all of John's precautions with renting a new flat under an assumed name, he certainly isn't doing much to keep himself safe in other areas.

_Maybe_, Sherlock realized with a cold little jolt,_ he has stopped caring_.


	3. Chapter 3

He let John out in front of his building, but didn't drive off right away. Instead, he watched him run (yes, run, cane and all) up the front stairs and into the building. Whatever was bothering him this morning certainly had yet to let up. Sherlock sighed. He was probably just having a row with Molly or something, he decided, and put the cab back into Drive in order to head back to the city.

He'd driven less than a block when what appeared to be the head of an extremely dirty mop dashed out into the street, and the thump of flesh on metal informed him that he had made contact with it. Brilliant. He can only hope that he's hit a stray—people can be so touchy about their pets, and making a scene is not good for his cover. He parked the cab and got out to inspect the damage.

The heap in front of his car had once a cat with long black fur that Sherlock recognized immediately. He crouched beside the creature and after only a moment, found exactly what he was looking for—a deep purple collar with a silver tag on. Brilliant. He didn't need to look at the tag to know where the cat belonged: he'd already seen its fur on John's pant legs, on the sleeves of his jacket, and sometimes even on the collar of his shirt. This was John's cat, he knew, and the man was extremely fond of him.

He wanted to leave the cat lying there in the street. John would certainly find him, he knew—he was likely to be back downstairs and searching any minute now. But he couldn't bring himself to do such a thing. There was something in his mind (because he knew, scientifically, that the only thing that heart's only real purpose was to pump blood) that wouldn't allow him to. He didn't want John to find his beloved pet cold and crushed in the street, the heartless perpetrator long gone. He had a sense of duty now, an obligation to own up to his crime, whatever it was. He found himself clinging to the hope that John wouldn't even recognize him. It was a distinct possibility, what with the drastic changes in Sherlock's appearance. With a sigh, he scooped the creature into his arms. There was no need to be careful about aggravating any spinal injuries or broken ribs, he realized, because the cat had surely died instantaneously.

Sherlock made his way to John's door, but didn't knock. In fact, he turned around to look back at his cab for a moment. This could be a huge mistake. He was certain, of course, that the web was nothing, the danger to his friends passed. But if there was one more person out there, someone who had kept himself or herself cleverly hidden and was waiting for the slightest hint of Sherlock's survival...

The door creaked open behind him. The time for running was gone.

"Can I help you?" John snapped. Sherlock braced himself and turned around, making no effort to hide the sad little bundle in his arms. "My cat!"

"He had this address on his collar," Sherlock offered as explanation, and found himself trying to disguise his voice. As though that were the important part right now. "I feel terrible. He just ran out in front of me..." John had yet to reach for the cat. It seemed of the utmost importance that Sherlock get rid of the cat as quickly as possible. He didn't want to be holding it. He didn't want to be standing here. That feeling began to grow as John turned angry, observant eyes to Sherlock's face, and Sherlock's heart began to beat faster. This was the moment of truth. If John would ever recognize him for who he really was, it would be right now. Finally, John's eyes dropped, and Sherlock fought against the sigh of relief (and disappointment?) as he finally accepted the cat.

"Oh, Sherlock..." John's voice was broken. It was strange to hear his name fall from his friend's lips again, less desperate than the last time he'd heard it, but still as...broken. But he wasn't talking to him, Sherlock realized. He managed a short, dismissive laugh.

"Sherlock? Wasn't that the name of that fake detective nutter a few years ago?" He found himself repeating Chatterjee's words, derision lacing his tone. John didn't reply, only looked up at him with a strange look on his face. He looked part happy, part enraged. He had never seen this expression before on anyone, let alone on this man with whom he had shared a living space. He lifted his hand into the air, and Sherlock realized that he was going to punch him. With his fist poised partway between the two men, he froze, and a spark of recognition blazed in his eyes as he finally met Sherlock's gaze. "Sherlock?"

Might as well accept it, Sherlock thought to himself. There was no point in running away anymore. He took off his hat in greeting and tried for a brilliant smile. He probably only managed to make himself look queasy. "It's me, John," he said.

John's fist continued through the air and made a solid, painful connection with Sherlock's left cheekbone, and a moment later, both men were on the floor.

Sherlock had not been knocked unconscious, simply off-balance. He'd begun to build up a tolerance against fistfights, he imagined with a bit of a smirk. John, on the other hand, was slumped against the wall of the tiny foyer. Sherlock-the-cat was in an undignified heap on the ground, but Sherlock-the-human didn't care at this very moment. Instead, he concerned himself with making sure that John had not smashed his head too hard on the wall (he hadn't), that he was still breathing (he was), and that he would come to soon (he would).

Not long after he'd completed his assessment of John and struggled back to his feet, he heard soft footsteps falling on the walk behind him. Molly appeared and knelt next to John before she so much as noticed the cat at their feet. It would take some time before Sherlock grew used to surrounding himself with these people once again. "Oh no! Sherlock, what happened?"

Once again, Sherlock began to answer the question before his brain could accept that she was talking about the dead feline. He was struck by how strange it was to name a pet after a person—how much confusion it could cause when both were in the same place at the same time. Immediately afterwards, he was also struck by the realization that John did not expect him to ever be in the same room as the cat. He held his tongue and ignored the look that Molly gave him. She recognized him, he realized. Through his tattered clothes and his beard, she recognized him. So she'd redeemed herself a bit, after all.

John and Molly comforted each other for a moment over the cat, while Sherlock stood off to the side. He felt like an outsider, which was not a comfortable feeling next to John and Molly. These were two of the people who had liked him best when he was "still alive", two of the people who made the most effort to include him and did their best to attract his attention, but here they were, sharing a private moment. Sherlock sighed, relieved. Their moment was private, certainly, but not intimate. They were not _together_.

It was only upon John's "outing" of Sherlock that Molly looked back up at him. Her eyes made quick work of his appearance, observing but not quite dissecting. It was to be expected: she'd spent most of her time with him studying his body and blushing about the fact that she was studying his body, while John managed to pick up on his observational skills. Still, it was something. She made a comment about his beard, but Sherlock's head was still spinning a bit from John's punch and he wasn't ready to retort.

The next hour or so was a bit of a blur. He followed John up to his room and said nothing as the older man packed the cat carefully into a makeshift casket. He hung back as the three of them trekked back downstairs and John began to dig a hole in the earth. He took one step forward as John was digging—he wanted to offer to help—but a small hand touched his elbow and held him in place. Molly met his eyes and shook her head softly. Her message was clear. This was something that John needed to do on his own. Sherlock remembered watching him stand at his grave and frowned again.

John was murmuring something into the damp hole in the ground, but Sherlock couldn't quite make it out. He didn't need to hear the words in order to understand their meaning. It was a goodbye, just like the one John had managed at his graveside. Today, though, he could finally do what he'd wanted to do on that awful day, so he did. When John finished speaking, Sherlock moved closer to him and reached his hand out to John.

At first, he was afraid that he would be refused. What if John's anger was stronger than his happiness at Sherlock's return? He'd have to be crazy to expect to be welcomed back into the other man's life again, wouldn't he? He'd let John believe for years that he was dead. He'd let him leave Mrs. Hudson and get a tiny flat in the middle of nowhere. He'd let him live there for years with no companion except for an old cat.

After only a few seconds, John placed his cold hand in Sherlock's, and those fears disappeared immediately. He didn't have to look at him to confirm that he would be allowed back, that he was still welcome. The blood, he decided, the death and the fury and the fear and the desperation, they'd all been worth it. John was alive and Moriarty and his people were dead, and that was all that was important. He looked at their hands—John's were as covered with mud as Sherlock's were with imagined blood, but it was still right. It was still fine. The corners of his lips quirked into another smile, but a real one this time. He was home.

Finally.


End file.
